In OpenBSD/FreeBSD I use OpenBox/Tint2/Wbar as described in this FreeBSD forum post.Lightweight FreeBSD desktop howto
Wbar was my first attempt to make an OpenBSD port with significant help from Antoine Jacoutot.

Wbar is written in C++ originally for use with Fluxbox but I chose Openbox on the basis of the FreeBSD howto
I also feel that the Tint2 panel has more flexibility than the fluxbox panel. The svn version of Tint2 can be make to look and function like the Xfce4 panel complete with menu and application launchers.

My Tint2 clock will launch the calcurse calendar and my default terminal is rxvt-unicode. OpenBox/Tint2/Wbar/rxvt-unicode are all setup to use Redhat's Liberation font package.

I am looking at using the systray of tint2 to install an audio volume applet. There are several out there (gvolwheel, volumeicon, pnmixer) gvolwheel has been ported to FreeBSD using the oss backend. None of the volume applets support sndio directly.

I do not want to drift off thread on the challenges of volume control applet in OpenBSD so I'll end the post with a screenshot - the mouse is placed over the Wbar icon for the xombrero browser. Commonly used apps can also be launched from Openbox keybindings and less frequently used apps from the Openbox right-click menu.

Wbar is desktop application launcher that appears similiar to the dock
on an OS/X desktop. A wbar-config gui is included although the manual
configuration is easy with entries for icon path, command and tooltip.
Wbar commonly used with lightweight, stacking window managers such as
fluxbox and openbox.

WMFS. (written in C and configured in a simple text file = win). I did quite a heck amount of a research to decide on this one, because it's pretty neat as a dynamic tiling wm, and most important really easy to configure. Plus contains a built in status bar. Really easy and neat to use! Before I had tried dwm but didn't want to rebuild it all the time... and 'awesome', but i personally prefer text configurations over lua coding.. Also, I'm about to try 'subtle' on my new openbsd installation. It's built on C and configured with Ruby. (just try to see how it goes...). Lastly, openbox+tint2+wbar(optional) = always win, but i generally prefer dynamic tiling.

I've used fvwm for X almost exclusively since OpenBSD 3.2. Though I've tried other WMs from time to time, fvwm just does all i want from a WM in X. So I have no need or desire to play around anymore with another WM.

That said, independent of X, my favourite "window/console manager" is tmux --- couldn't go back to running without it now … indeed, on any unix-based machine I run for work or pleasure, it is used. It is a beautifully simple and powerful application

I got used to run on my computers , from stationary to laptop cwm. The simplest, reliable, and mouse free [if you wished to] X.
By the simplest word I mean not only pure look, but also a documentation of the cwmrc/cwm, which contain the exactly minimalistic things I want to cope with.

Also I have a sentiment to CDE, whom I was using years ago in times when I run AIX Unix on RS/6000.

These is my first post, so I also want to say hello to daemonforums community.

I got used to run on my computers , from stationary to laptop cwm. The simplest, reliable, and mouse free [if you wished to] X.

I also like cwm.

One thing that's bugging me now though is the borders on windows.
I've started playing with acme from plan9ports, and I like it to occupy my whole screen except a gap area for xclock and xload. The trouble is landing the mouse on the top tag (a one line area with editable command names that acts kind of like a menu would in a Mac/Windows style UI) so I can type in a path or command to go to or run. If I lazily sweep up there I land in acme's X window border I think. At least wherever the mouse does land it doesn't give the tag input focus to allow me to type into it without careful aim.

I'm half considering hacking at cwm to make windows that abut the screen edges have a border of zero width. Can you think of any better way to deal with this? The ignore configure file setting will give a window class zero border width, but it also leaves it out of window selection commands, which is not wanted here.

Yes I see that OpenBSD set port for Plan 9. It's the essence of the Research UNIX group of Bell Labs [the last Unix from them was Tenth Edition, simply called V10]. Francisco Ballesteros who wrote a great book about programming environment in Plan 9 said "One word of caution, if you know UNIX, Plan 9 is not UNIX, you should forget what you assume about UNIX while using this system."

Rob Pike the master project leader of Plan 9; done great software.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thirdm

I'm half considering hacking at cwm to make windows that abut the screen edges have a border of zero width. Can you think of any better way to deal with this? The ignore configure file setting will give a window class zero border width, but it also leaves it out of window selection commands, which is not wanted here.

I don't know If I understand you correctly but, if you want to make window edges easier to identify, You can type in .cwmrc; these or other set of colours, and borderwith [in cwm default border is 1 pixel wide]:
borderwidth 3
color activeborder blue
color inactiveborder darkblueidentify

I simply use cwm with default set of configure file, in witch I put entries to application menu, and some abbreviations to keyboard. I also use feh program, by whom I set some wallpaper [in .xsession file; feh --bg-scale [image destination] ].

Quote:

Originally Posted by daemonfowl

what customizations to cwm to get a fully mouse-free wm ?

I see now, that I've made here little misunderstanding when I use authoritative sentence: " mouse free X." - for witch I apologize.

By using these set of words, I mean that I don't need permanent mouse involve in decision process on my screen, -but Yes help from the touchpad on laptop from time to time is necessary -even then these not affect the fact that cwm can be controlled in many ways by keyboard shortcuts.